Built an extension recently?

[wedg1e]

Me Julie and I are contemplating extending Wedg1e Villas (it'll be Chateau Wedg1e instead :D ).
Plan is to buy a strip of land alongside the house, move the garage and driveway about 10 feet sideways and add say 8 feet to the width of the house (it's only about 20 foot now!). Then rearrange the inside walls (mostly plasterboard and 2 x 2).
So... ignoring the land and garage issues, how much to build an 8 x 30 foot single-storey extension, with a gable end and pitched roof? £20K? 30?

[ZR1cliff]

wedg1e said:

Me Julie and I are contemplating extending Wedg1e Villas (it'll be Chateau Wedg1e instead ). Plan is to buy a strip of land alongside the house, move the garage and driveway about 10 feet sideways and add say 8 feet to the width of the house (it's only about 20 foot now!). Then rearrange the inside walls (mostly plasterboard and 2 x 2). So... ignoring the land and garage issues, how much to build an 8 x 30 foot single-storey extension, with a gable end and pitched roof? £20K? 30?

I used to build 'one of' extensions all the time,last one i did was a while back and was a 4m x 4m conservatory room,from my reckoning if you are doing the work yourself 20K should cover it easy.
There are 2 ways you can do this,
1/ get a company to do it all or 2/ sub all the work out,its easy get 3 or more quotes for the plans dont always go for the cheapest and try and get people refered to you for their good work,measure it all out and triple check,dig it all out yourself then when you call the building inspector use his expertise and advice to guide you on the next step.

You should be able to dig and concrete the footing yourselfs,a tip here is to concrete it as close to ground level as possible(keeps the brickwork price down),say 2 courses of brickwork so to damp it will only be 4-5 courses get 3 or more quotes from brickies and let them build it to DPC,then you concrete the oversite,Brickie comes in again,then chippy for roof ,and you could handle the tiling yourself,its straight forward.
Then plasterer,to do walls and floor and ceiling ,you to do decorating and knocking through and 'viola mon maisonette' you are done.
To get a better idea on the price line up all the quotes before hand(Brickie,chippy,plasterer,council checks) and also give a few builders merchants plans so they can work out material costs.

[wedg1e]

ZR1cliff said:

wedg1e said: Me Julie and I are contemplating extending Wedg1e Villas (it'll be Chateau Wedg1e instead ). Plan is to buy a strip of land alongside the house, move the garage and driveway about 10 feet sideways and add say 8 feet to the width of the house (it's only about 20 foot now!). Then rearrange the inside walls (mostly plasterboard and 2 x 2). So... ignoring the land and garage issues, how much to build an 8 x 30 foot single-storey extension, with a gable end and pitched roof? £20K? 30? I used to build 'one of' extensions all the time,last one i did was a while back and was a 4m x 4m conservatory room,from my reckoning if you are doing the work yourself 20K should cover it easy. There are 2 ways you can do this, 1/ get a company to do it all or 2/ sub all the work out,its easy get 3 or more quotes for the plans dont always go for the cheapest and try and get people refered to you for their good work,measure it all out and triple check,dig it all out yourself then when you call the building inspector use his expertise and advice to guide you on the next step. You should be able to dig and concrete the footing yourselfs,a tip here is to concrete it as close to ground level as possible(keeps the brickwork price down),say 2 courses of brickwork so to damp it will only be 4-5 courses get 3 or more quotes from brickies and let them build it to DPC,then you concrete the oversite,Brickie comes in again,then chippy for roof ,and you could handle the tiling yourself,its straight forward. Then plasterer,to do walls and floor and ceiling ,you to do decorating and knocking through and 'viola mon maisonette' you are done. To get a better idea on the price line up all the quotes before hand(Brickie,chippy,plasterer,council checks) and also give a few builders merchants plans so they can work out material costs.

Knowing my tendency for lethargy I was hoping to give more or less the whole thing to a builder (apart from internals). I suppose now I'll have to have electrics certified
Biggest chew I can see is putting one or more RSJs in the existing gable end to allow the knock-through...

[M@H]

wedg1e said:

Knowing my tendency for lethargy I was hoping to give more or less the whole thing to a builder (apart from internals).

The more you give to a builder, the more it'll cost you.. basically most builders are just "managers" for the local casual building labour pool. I wouldn't be suprised if you get charged £200-£300 a week for "overseeing" if you use a builder just for starters.

Having been through all this recently, the next time I extend/build anything I'm going to manage it myself and just buy in the skills I need as and when ..that way I'll know I'm not off on another job too

[victormeldrew]

I just got my City & Guilds Brickwork, as I intend to build my own. Quite when I'll find the time is another matter, but I have all the skills I need - I used to be a spark, and I'm pretty handy at plumbing, carpentry (of through and ready kind, I could never make a sideboard, but studwork no sweat), roofing, you name it.

Plastering it the only thing I might, literally, come unstuck with. Bit of an art that I reckon.

If anyone could help with the plans to get the necessary permissions it'd be appreciated!

[Tony427]

For an 8 by 30 foot extension you should be paying no more than £15k, less if you do the buying of materials and manage the labour.

A mate in Grantham has recently done much the same and by borrowing a set of plans from a neighbour with a similar extension and use of skilled labour recruited amongst his co-horts down the pub its cost him less than £10k.

Cheers,

Tony

[staceyb]

Once you get your drawings get your builder to work out roughly how much of everything your going to need(everything from bricks to screws) and ring round local builders merchants tell them what your doing and how much stuff your going to need and get a fixed price for the stuff and buy from them direct (your builder will put at least 20% on materials).

All in all should save you some cash.

Also make sure your builder has correct insurance and safety cards and the like. If they make a fuss about producing them stay away basically.

[mondeoman]

Best way is to do a rough estimate of the material cost yourself and then triple it, that'll good you a very good ball-park estimate of the overall cost.

Just had one done (Xmas this year) 30'x14' upstairs with a pitched tiled roof, on top of an existing extension which was gutted, came to about £35k all in, including new kitchen, toilet, radiators, boiler etc...

So for yours I'd've guesstimated at about £20k tops.

[Nick_F]

Our project is approx 25' x 15', two-storey: first builder's quote came in at £51k plus the VAT...second builder is having a look round today.

However we do it it won't be cheap, but it beats moving house to find more space.